Famunion

Sharing Your iTunes Library Online With PulpTunes

// July 1st, 2009 // Apple, iTunes

So you want to share your iTunes library over the Internet. Many will say it can’t be done, and to those people I say, eat monkey balls!! Not only can you do it, not only is it super easy, it’s also FREE!! How you ask? I will tell you. All you need is this handy little program called PulpTunes. What PulpTunes does is install as a web service with a slick interface and let you access your library through your computer’s IP address.

What are some of the other features of PulpTunes?

• Works on PC, MAC and Linux
• Allows your to download the music files
• Supports MP3 and AAC(MP4) files
• Displays album art work
• Command line mode for a server environment
• FREE!!

Now lets walk through the basic set up, and then a more advanced set up in case you are on a dynamic IP.

The basic set up

What you’ll need:

1. Latest version of PulpTunes
2. Computer with iTunes installed
3. Knowledge of how to open ports in your router

What you need to do:

1. Download PulpTunes and install it…easy
2. Log into your router and forward/open  port 15000, depending on what model you have it’ll be different. PulpTunes will provide you with a link to  a website where you can get detailed instructions for nearly every model out there.
3. Open your web browser and navigate to http://your-ip-address:150000 Once again, PulpTunes will tell you what your IP address is.
4. If you can’t access your library this way then you did something wrong, time to hit the PulpTunes forum, FAQ or leave a comment below and I’ll try to help you. If you can see your library, then you’re pretty much set. Blast the speakers and Enjoy!!

Dealing with those pesky Dynamic IP Addresses

Once you have PulpTunes set up and you’re happily jamming you’re pretty much set, that is, until your IP changes. This can happen at various times depending on your ISP and your locations. Sometimes it also happens if you turn off your computer, or unplug your router for a long time. In any case, it sucks, and can make you look bad if you’re trying to show off to your friends.

The solution: Use a service like www.dyndns.com/ which lets you assign a domain name to a dynamic IP address. Then when your IP address changes, dymdns.com will automagically update the domain to reflect the new IP address. The only drawback is that your domain will look something like itunes.dyndns.biz, where “itunes” is what I typed in myself, but that is still better than an IP address with a port number at the end.

How do you set up your IP address with DynDNS.com?

First set up an account, which is free. Once you’ve verified your email address and you have logged in:

1. Click on “My services” from the top right part of the page, right under your username.
2. Click “Add Hostname” from the Host Services Section
3. From the new form enter the hostname you want
4. IMPORTANT: From service type select the “Webhop Redirect” option.
5. The “IP Address” section will change to “WebHop Settins” and will ask you for the Redirect URL, this is where you enter your IP address followed by the port number (eg. http://xx.xxx.xx.xxx:15000)
6. On your browser go to the hostname you just created and you will see your PulpTunes screen, but you will notice that the top part has advertisements.
7. To get rid of the advertisements you will have to upgrade your account to a premium account which is $15 for 1 year.

Pretty cool stuff, but I happen to have my own web server - Now what?

At this point you now have a pretty sweet set up, PulpTunes is pumping your music over the interwebs, you don’t have to worry about your dynamic IP going AWOL on you, you probably picked out a pretty funny or cool domain from DynDNS and you probably paid the $15 to get rid of the ads and your home brewed music server is impressing your friends. But maybe you want to use your own domain which you already own. You may either create a sub-domain for a current domain, or use a top level domain for the next steps.

What you’ll need:

1. Your own domain
2. Web hosting service

What you need to do:

1. Create a sub-domain, which will look like music.famunion.com, instructions depend on your hosting company.
2. Create a directory that the sub-domain will point to. You can skip step one, it’s not completely necessary, you can simply have www.famunion.com/music
3. If you’re not using a sub domain, then simply skip steps 1 & 2 and simply use the root directory for your domain.
4. Create a HTML file with the following code in it and place it in the directory you just created for your sub domain, name it index.html and place the contents below into it.

<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en">
<head><title>Home iTunes</title></head>
<frameset rows="*">
<frame src="http://domain.fromDyDNS.com/" name="redir_frame" frameborder="0"
scrolling="auto" noresize="noresize" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0"/>
<noframes>
    <body>
        <p>Sorry, your browser does not support frames. You suck!</p>
        <hr/>
    </body>
</noframes>
</frameset></html>

Don't forget to change the line that says<frame src="http://domain.fromDyDNS.com/"
to use your own domain that you created in DynDNS

And that’s it. You may now use your own domain. This is nice because it gives me flexibility and a domain of my own which gives the whole set up a nice clean touch.

I think you can do a better job than what I did if you know more advanced techniques, such as configuring domain controller or something along those lines. It’s out of my scope of knowledge, but if you are able to create a better set up I’d love to hear about it.

What else can you do with iTunes?

1. You can clean your library with TuneUp. It’s $30 but it is completely worth it. I used it to clean over 40K songs and it does a great job. The way it works is it takes an accoustic signature of your song and matches it with one from their library of over 90 million songs. It then rewrites your song with the correct song title, artist, album and album cover. It also provides information on bands, artists, local concerts and has a dedicated album cover feature. Go get it